5 Beautiful Movie Libraries to ‘Ooh’ And ‘Aah’ Over

For centuries, libraries have been some of the most spectacular buildings in the world, being the centre for knowledge, information, human innovation and the community.

It’s no surprise that countless movies have featured libraries in their script over the years, taking advantage of their large size and their unique form of architecture. If you love movies and you love libraries, our list of five gorgeous on-screen libraries will thrill you!

1) The school library in The Breakfast Club

Dubbed one of the best high school movies of all time, The Breakfast Club is set in a high school library where five students from different cliques spends time together in detention.

Filming took place in a real school gymnasium, which the studio turned into a library. The same school was also featured in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

2) The Hogwarts Library in the Harry Potter series

Can you imagine going to school where the library is filled with tens of thousands of books on thousands of shelves? The sheer size!

With its fantastic Victorian-gothic architecture, the Hogwarts Library is a place where hundreds of Hogwarts students can read, study, and borrow books. It’s rumoured to feature at least one section of books concerned with every subject taught at Hogwarts and plenty of other sections, including A Restricted Section, An Invisibility Section, and even a Dragon Section.

Many of Harry Potter‘s adventures involved the library, from sneaking into the Restricted Section under his Invisibility Cloak to researching ways to breathe underwater.

→ Image: Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

3) The Beast’s Library in Beauty and the Beast

The library was the Beast’s present for Belle, featuring just about everything you could ever want in an (animated) library. High roofs, a magnificent fireplace, and an endless numbers of books… no wonder Belle is in disbelief.

→ Image: Walt Disney

4) The Jedi Archives in Star Wars II: The Attack of the Clones

The Jedi Archives is a library containing ancient knowledge and research dating back thousands of years, with four main halls containing books, a large transit area beneath, the librarian’s quarters, and several private study halls for diligent researchers who would go days without sleep.

Open all hours of the day, the Jedi Archives is accessible to all Jedi looking for information.

→ Image: 20th Century Fox

5) The New York Public Library in The Day After Tomorrow

Nothing is more chilling—pardon the pun—than the sight of the New York Public Library in The Day After Tomorrow, a climate disaster movie starring Jake Gyllenhall as Sam Hall, the son of a paleoclimatologist.

When the weather takes a turn for the worse and superstorm hits New York, Sam and his friends are forced to seek shelter in the library. Terrifying? Very much so.

What other beautiful libraries can you find on screen? Which is your favourite from these ones? Let us know in the comments!